


Seeing Other People

by jasminepeony14



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Break Up, M/M, Regret, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23160400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jasminepeony14/pseuds/jasminepeony14
Summary: Nico thought this is what he wanted.  Turns out, it's not.  Songfic set to "Seeing Other People" by Mackenzie Porter.
Relationships: Levi Schmitt/OMC, Nico Kim/Levi Schmitt
Comments: 69
Kudos: 279





	1. Seeing Other People

_"Thought we should see other people  
'Til I started seeing other people with you"_

_-Mackenzie Porter_

When Nico sees the guy from across the bar, he gives him an appreciative onceover. He’s got that classic ruggedly handsome look glorified in the movies—tall, dark olive skin, and bright green-hazel eyes that pierce right through you—and for a split second, Nico considers sliding up to him, flashing a bedroom stare, and dropping a line or two.

But then the guy, looking over a broad shoulder, smiles a breathtaking grin, the source of his dizzying joy undeniable as a smaller body claims the empty spot beside him. He kisses Levi like it’s the most natural, most right thing he could do.

Shamefully, vanity is the first place Nico’s ego goes. Levi must be trying to rile him, he thinks spitefully. Why else would Levi bring his new fling here, here, the hospital hang-out, where he has to know it will get back to Nico? Where Nico will likely see it for himself?

And maybe Levi is out for a bit of payback, but Nico can’t ignore a question that nags and tugs.

Even if that is the case, why the hell does Nico even care?

Because, seeing other people? That had been Nico’s idea. An idea he had been so convinced was the right one—the only one—for so many reasons. Levi wanted commitment. Nico wanted casual. Levi wanted honesty. Nico wanted easy. Levi wanted to be a part of Nico’s life in every sense. Nico wanted his life in boxes…his boyfriend in one and his family squarely in another.

When he had broken the news, he had insisted that a break was as much for Levi’s sake as for his own. That Levi needed to get out into the world and experience more. That thinking your first love would be your last was impractical, borderline ridiculous.

_  
  
_

Levi had cried, big blue eyes so beautifully sheened. But he had agreed and walked away, back straight.

Nico had thought it would be easy to return to his old routine, like slipping into an old pair of favored sweatpants. Bar, guy, one and done. But the thing about sweatpants you wear over and over, they fray at the ends. Tear apart at the seams. At some point, they lose their function. Their warmth.

At some point, you have to call it and throw them out.

  
_  
_

Now, here they are on the opposite ends of the same bar, Nico nursing a beer, Levi nursing a kiss. Green-eyes settles a hand on Levi’s hip, and Nico squeezes the bottleneck of his beer so hard it might just shatter under the pressure.

If Nico could convince himself that Levi is just having some fun—just out getting the experience Nico told him to—maybe absolute, stupefied horror wouldn’t be sinking into Nico’s bones right now. But he can see it in the way Green-Eyes is gazing at Levi while Levi, unawares, laughs at something Taryn has said. Green-eyes isn’t in it for the sex. No, he’s a man wondering just how early is too early to whisper those three little words. To take a boy home to introduce him to momma. To pick out the perfect wedding bands.

A man like that isn’t about to simply disappear. If Levi is in it for the fun now, then Green Eyes will play the long game. He’ll take it step by step and keep his piercing stare on the prize. And Levi, so more emotionally mature than Nico by strides, will notice. He’ll notice that patient, steady devotion, and it will move him. It will draw him in like a butterfly to nectar, and he will drink. He will drink deeply. And, after, he won’t want anything else. 

He won’t want anyone else. 

Nico takes a long swing of his beer and looks away to the other side of the room. From a table in the corner, a cute third year from radiology is sending out signals loud enough to be heard by the whole of Seattle, but Nico can’t seem to summon strength needed to pick up what’s being put down, let alone run with it.

  
Against his vehement wishes, Nico’s head slowly swivels back round. Taryn has left Levi and Green-eyes alone, and Green-eyes is reaching for Levi’s hand. 

Their fingers thread together seamlessly. Like they’ve done it a thousand times. Like they’ll do it an infinite many more. _  
_

“His name is Rudra.” Taryn is suddenly sitting beside Nico, a glass of coke and rum in hand. She gazes straight ahead as she takes a small sip.

“He’s a resident at Children’s,” she goes on. “Plans to specialize in oncology. And, when he is not saving dying children, he volunteers his free time at the animal shelter on 5th. That’s where Levi met him when he went to adopt a cat.”

“Levi got a cat?” Nico interjects mildly, and Taryn smirks.

“Yep. Cute little three-legged Calico. Rudra helped him pick her out—and somewhere along the line got Levi’s number. They’ve gone out for almost a month now, and a blind person could see how good they are together. Rudra--he’s nice. He’s kind. He saves babies and three-legged kittens. He can actually articulate his feelings and show them in the things that he does. As far as I can tell—and I am an astoundingly good judge of character—he’s got nothing hide, and he isn’t hiding from anyone. More importantly, he won’t hide Levi from anyone. Give it time, and he will love Levi spectacularly.”

Nico’s heart stops, but his face stays stone.

“Your point?” he mutters. Setting down her glass, Taryn at last looks at him head on.

“My point,” she says, “is make up your mind, Kim. You know what Levi wants. If you won’t give it to him, stay out of his way. Don’t hang around. Don’t confuse him with your sad eyes. Don’t regret it where he can see you, not if all you have to offer is your regrets. Unless you are going to love him the way he needs and wants—don’t. Do him the courtesy of letting him have the space to get over you. Let someone like Rudra take it from here. Man up or bow out.”

She leaves without hearing Nico’s response, which is all well and good, because Nico has none. She’s not wrong. He can’t push Levi away and then be hurt when Levi starts moving on. It’s not fair. It’s not logical. Except he is hurt. He’s wrecked. Utterly wrecked. Seeing other people had sounded so nice. Had sounded like relief—like an escape from feelings he wasn’t trying to catch. Why hadn’t it clicked, then, that him seeing other people meant seeing other people with Levi too? That the consequences of his fear would out play before his eyes like a cinematic masterpiece he should’ve co-starred in but backed out of at the last minute? Why wasn’t it obvious that Levi might be just fine without him? That Levi might walk out of _their_ bar hand-in-hand with someone new and not so much as glance back? 

That Nico would watch them go and feel the bottom of the world fall out.


	2. Whoever Broke Your Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dr. Rudra Anand knows many things. Here are few.
> 
> Songfic set to "Whoever Broke Your Heart" by Murphy Elmore
> 
> (Thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments! I have decided to try to turn this into a series of songfics and sees where it goes)

_"Whoever broke your heart, he must've been crazy."_

_-Murphy Elmore_

Rudra knows Levi has a Before. It’s in his hesitation, the way he thinks twice before sinking into an embrace, the tentativeness in his touch. He’s eager, beaming like that first burst of morning sun through a bedroom window, but he second guesses his own brightness, as if someone told off him for daring to shine so brilliantly. Somebody did, and damn it if Rudra doesn’t want to take that somebody to the mat for it.

But Rudra also knows that it’s because of that Before Levi wandered into the Almost Home Animal Shelter on a Sunday afternoon just a little after two.

And for that, Rudra will happily lift a glass.

Rudra knows that Levi’s Before is sitting at the other end of bar. It’s obvious, given the way the guy’s dark brown eyes are trying to bore holes into Rudra’s skull. He has a flawless face, devastatingly chiseled, and, in any other scenario, Rudra would be more than a little intimidated. Yet, Levi is leaning in, his hands sliding up the planes of Rudra’s back, and all Rudra feels is overwhelmingly gratitude. _  
_

Rudra knows there a story stretched across the bar’s wooden surface, a suture that hasn’t been cut yet. Conjoined hearts don’t rip apart like paper, in a quick, seamless motion. It’s harder than that, and it takes longer too. Hell, Brown Eyes looks like he’ll jump up from his stool any second any now and bash his beer into Rudra’s head. But he stays put, and Levi stays at _this_ end of the bar, his clear blue eyes focused ahead.

And that’s a start Rudra is not about to squander.

Rudra knows Brown Eyes must have his reasons—there’s a function behind every behavior, regardless how insane it looks to everyone else—and Rudra does his best to keep an open mind. To see the world from dimension-bending lenses. So many of his young patients believe magic to be a tangible thing, and it helps their healing if he can see the real in their imagination. 

But, for the life of him, he can’t figure out what Brown Eyes has conjured to justify walking away from a heart like Levi’s, a heart with so much to give it can’t help but go all in on every feeling. Who says “no” to a man who’s brave enough to stand completely bare in front of you?

Rudra knows the only side Levi’s friend Taryn is on is Levi’s. She likes Rudra, or at least she hasn’t given him any cause to think otherwise, and she doesn’t cross him as the type to fake nice. That doesn’t mean, though, she is batting for him when she sits down next to Brown Eyes at the other end of their bar. Their conversation is brief, clipped, and whatever shots she takes are for Levi’s sake. She could be telling Brown Eyes to step up. She could just as likely be telling Brown Eyes to step off. As far as Rudra is concerned, she can tell Brown Eyes whatever she wants, because it doesn’t change anything that matters:

Brown Eyes is on the wrong side of the bar. The wrong side of goodbye. Most importantly, Rudra _isn’t_.

Taryn gets up and leaves Brown Eyes alone. As she goes, she, glancing up and meeting Rudra’s gaze, raises her glass. Rudra inclines his head as his fingers weave together with Levi’s, appreciating the feel of their skins sliding against each other.

“Wanna get out of here?” he asks. Levi smiles, and, good Lord the way Rudra’s chest throbs.

In that moment, Dr. Rudra Anand knows he’ll fight with every last ounce of spirit he has to stay right here, on this side of the bar, on this side of Levi, beside Levi. He doesn’t need to lose Levi first to know what gift is to be the man leaving with him and not the one trapped in the rearview mirror.


	3. Naked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi bares it all. So does Nico.
> 
> Songfic set to "Naked" by James Arthur

_  
"I'm standing here naked."_

-James Arthur

“Okay, what’s your problem?”

Levi resents having to ask the question. After nine hours straight in an OR, he just wants bed. More specifically, he wants bed and then green-hazel eyes gazing at him over morning coffee. He should already be halfway to the locker room, but he’s hanging back, damp hands braced against a sink, while Nico washes his hands methodically under hot water.

“My problem?” Nico, monotone, echoes. “I don’t have a problem.”

“You have been the walking, breathing textbook definition of passive aggressive all day. I’d ask what I did wrong, ‘cause I know I mess up a lot, except I haven’t. Not today. Not with you. So, I ask again, what is your problem?”

The only answer is the squeak of the faucet as Nico shuts it off.

“Look,” Levi tries again while Nico reaches for a towel, “I know we haven’t really talked since…you know, and this is admittedly uncharted territory for me, but aren’t we past this part? The awkward, can-barely-be-in-the-same-room part? If anyone gets to be passive aggressive, it’s me, the one who got dumped. But I’m trying here, Nico, to be professional, because we have to be able to work together. Can we do that? Can we be professional?”

Scratch that—can Nico be professional? And why does Levi even have to make the request? Levi is doing exactly what Nico had said he wanted Levi to do, keeping his emotions on lockdown, leading for once with his brain and not the four-chambered organ beneath his ribcage. 

So why is Nico drawing this out, wiping his hands clean in slow, deliberate strokes?

“Okay, you know what? Forget it. I am going home. I’m going home to eat and sleep, and then I’m going to come in tomorrow and do my job. And if you, for whatever inexplicable reason, do have a problem with that, deal with it, or do a better job of pretending it doesn’t exist—We both know how good you are at that.”

Silent, Nico steps on a lever at the bottom of the trashcan to trigger open its lid and tosses in the crumpled towel. Throwing his hands up, Levi turns and starts to leave.

“Do you love him?”

Nico’s voice traverses the short distance between them and blocks the door, forcing Levi to halt mid-step.

“W-what?” he demands, spinning back around. Nico keeps his back to him.

“Rudra,” Nico clarifies needlessly. “The baby, three-legged kitten saving guy you brought to Joe’s the other night. Do you love him?”

Levi wants to laugh. He wants to scream. Is laugh-screaming a thing? He’s pretty sure he’s about to make it a thing.

“You…you don’t get to do that,” Levi says. His chin begins to shake side to side, shallow denials that punctuate his words. “You don’t get to be mad at me for Rudra. You don’t get to be mad at me. You ended us. _You_. “

He stops to take a breath, to slow himself down, but it’s too late. The four-chambered organ has broken out of its cage.

“You kissed me. You called me a ‘baby-gay.’ You said didn’t want to be my ‘gay Sherpa.’ You kissed me again. You said you wanted to take me home for Christmas. You said you’d protect me. You got mad that I shh’d you when talking to my mother. You didn’t want me to meet your parents. You didn’t want to talk about you lying to me. You threatened to leave me. And then you left. You. _You_.”

“You told me what you wanted,” he goes on, breathless but nowhere near finished. “You told me what you were willingly to give. You said that if you weren’t enough, that was it—we were done. And, well, you were right. You weren’t enough. You weren’t enough, because I deserve better than you.”

“I deserve more than booty calls in on-call rooms. I deserve more than someone just ‘showing up.’ I deserve someone who will show up and stay. I deserve more than lies. I deserve honesty. I deserve someone who brags about me to their parents because of how good I am at loving him. I deserve someone who is all in on me.”

Finally, Nico turns around and faces him. His face is beautiful and unmoved.

“You done?” he asks. Chuckling, Levi exhales crisply.

“Yeah. I’m done.”

Levi begins to leave again, his fingers curling around the door handle. But, behind him, strong, certain footsteps drum against the tile floor, and then hands are on his hips, twirling him back ‘round.

Nico pushes him up against the door, their groins flush to one another. His hands swim up Levi’s torso, round the curves of his shoulders, and come to rest in a cradle hold around his jaw.

Levi’s breath catches in his throat as he places his palms against Nico’s chest and shoves—lightly and not nearly as hard as he could. Not hard enough to push Nico away.

“I told you what I want,” he manages, fixating on the bob of Nico’s Adam’s apple. “Rudra can give me what I want. You can’t.”

Nico’s thumb brushes against his cheek, and Levi wishes that he hated the way his fingertips felt on his skin.

Levi dares to look up. Nico is staring back, eyes dark and genuine.

“I can’t,” Nico concedes. “Not yet. But I’m going to become the kind of man who can. Because you’re right too—you deserve better. So I’m going to be better.”

“Nico—” Nico cuts him off gently, thumbing at his cheek again.

“Please don’t call my name like that. If you call my name like that, I am going to want to kiss you, and I don’t want to kiss you until I know I can keep you.”

“I’m not going to wait for you.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“Then what are you asking?” Leaning down, Nico presses his forehead against Levi’s, and for a moment, they just stand there, their breaths synchronizing despite Levi’s best efforts not to fall into that easy rhythm.

“Don’t fall in love with him,” Nico whispers. “At least, not the kind of love you can’t fall out of. That you can’t come back from. Because that’s the kind of love I am with you. You’re it for me, Levi. And I know I am not the man you deserve yet. But I will be. So, don’t fall in love with him. Don’t fall out of love with me. Please.”

Laboriously, Nico steps back, his eyes never leaving Levi’s. Shakily, Levi gropes for the door handle, eventually finds it, and slips out.

He doesn’t need to turn around to know that Nico watches him until he turns the corner of the corridor and disappears out of sight.


	4. Make You Feel My Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rudra shows up. And then he stays.
> 
> Songfic set to "Make You Feel My Love" by Adele

_"I could hold you for a million years_

_To make you feel my love."_

_-Adele_

At first, Rudra mistakes Levi’s red-rimmed eyes for exhaustion. Midnight is fresh, barely a quarter hour old, and Levi has just come off surgery. Rudra knows all too well how that feels, to leave it all on an OR floor, so he has come prepared, accoutrements hanging off his forearm in a paper brown bag.

“I hope you like popcorn,” he says, bypassing _hi_ and _how are you_. He peers into the bag and takes stock of inventory. “You said you like to unwind by watching your favorite movie, so I thought I’d bring popcorn. But do you know many kinds of popcorn there are? Butter, kettle, cheddar, white cheddar, caramel, caramel bacon—point is there’s a lot, and I didn’t know which you like, so I just bought one of each. And then halfway here, I realized what if you’re one of those weirdos who’d rather snack on anything but popcorn—”

Leaning against the doorframe, Levi lets out a cry masquerading as a laugh, and Rudra’s head snaps up. That’s not tired red beneath Levi’s weary blue.

“Babe, what is it?” he asks hurriedly. His hands ache to shuck the bag to the side and reach for Levi instead, but he doesn’t want to presume that’s what Levi wants right now. This is the first time Rudra has witnessed Levi hanging on by a thread, and maybe a hug will send him to pieces instead of holding him together. So, instead, Rudra’s hands grip the bag’s handles tighter.

“Did something go wrong with your surgery?” Rudra prods gently. Sniffling, Levi shakes his head and tries on a small smile. It’s ill-fitting.

“No,” he answers. “No, the surgery was amazing—I was amazing. Flawless technique. No mistakes. None. The picture of professional. Then Nico goes and makes it decidedly _un_ professional—”

“You mean your ex?” Rudra interjects, stomach clenching. “Did he say something to you?”

“No…Yes. I-I don’t know. I just want to watch my movie and forget it, but I can’t, because the last time I watched it was with him, and now it’s our movie. It’s our movie, and I don’t want it to be. I want my movie back. He shouldn’t get to keep it. It’s mine, and I want it back. I want it back—”

He chokes and then breaks.

Rudra drops the bag and steps over the threshold. 

In his arms, Levi shudders, sobs rolling through him like floodwaters breaching a dam wall. Rudra presses him closer and glides his palm up and down long Levi’s spine. Is this enough, he wonders, to convey to Levi the resolve Rudra’s heart is pumping into his every blood cell? Is this enough to show that Rudra is not scared of lingering shadows?

It’s not an accident that Rudra is here. Levi isn’t here in his arms by happenchance. 

Levi’s sobs begin to wane, and, gingerly, he steps back, not out of Rudra’s hold, just enough to so he can gaze at Rudra head on. Those blue eyes settle on him, and Rudra’s lungs seize up. He might be staring right at his undoing, because this man? This man has the power to break him.

“I’m sorry,” Levi hums. “You brought popcorn, and I’m a mess.” Rudra smiles and tugs him closer once more.

“You’re not a mess, Levi.”

Rudra is a surgeon. His whole career exists because there are things inside the body that cannot be healed with a wave of a wand or a wish. Fixes are rarely simple. So he is under no illusion of resolution as Levi tilts his head to silently request a kiss.

But, that being said, Rudra is one damn good surgeon. His hands are steady, patient, and strong, and they and all the rest of him are going to adore this man with world-class finesse.

Rudra tips his chin to the side and accepts Levi’s invitation like he’s got something to prove. Because he does.


	5. Make No Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rudra and Nico each stands his ground.
> 
> Songfic set to "Make No Mistake, He's Mine" by Kim Carnes feat. Barbara Streisand

_"Make no mistake he's mine he's mine, he's mine."_

_-Kim Carnes feat. Barbara Streisand_

“See you tonight?” 

Nico does not intend to overhear. He would very much rather not know how warm and rich Rudra’s deep timbre is. But timing is not in his favor this morning, and ahead, right outside the doors of Grey Sloan, Levi is popping up on his toes to peck Rudra’s cheek.

“Yep! See you then!” he chirps before rushing inside at that harried pace at which all surgical interns operate. Rudra, however, moves leisurely, his steps slow and protracted, and he is smiling to himself as he turns to leave. 

His grin, pleased and soft-edged, fractures as his eyes crash into Nico.

Rudra’s green-hazel glare drops and leaps up in one-two step assessment, and a clinical veneer washes over him, as if donning a mask and snapping on tight plastic gloves. 

“I don’t want any trouble, man,” Rudra says coolly, slipping his hands into the pockets of his wool coat. Nico smirks, his top lip twitching up in distaste.

“Neither do I.”

“Good. Then do us all a favor and give Levi the respect he deserves as your colleague and nothing else. Whatever you said to him last week, he wasn’t happy about it, and if Levi is unhappy, then there will be trouble. And, to be clear, there will be trouble for you.”

“You’ve been dating for what? Not even two months?” Nico retorts, carefully, as to not release the winds of the cyclone wreaking havoc inside of him. “Don’t talk like you know all about us.”

“Fair,” Rudra concedes so easily it’s infuriating. “I don’t know all that went down between you and Levi. That’s between you and him. But I do know whatever happened, that’s _all_ that happened. Because there is no more you and him—there is no ‘us’ as you define it.”

To stay calm, Nico must divert his attention to his breath for a moment. He must recall Levi balanced on an ambulance bench, bereft of glasses but bright-eyed, making it perfectly clear how he saw Nico.

“We might not be together right now,” he replies, braving a step forward. “But there is a me-and-him. There will always be a me-and-him.”

He finds his footing and pierces Rudra’s space.

“So, feel free to help him pick out a pet,” Nico goes on. The cut is clean. Precise. “Take him out to bars and dinner dates. Let him tell his friends how _nice_ you are. Keep it light and fun and breezy. That’s fine by me. That’s cotton candy. Fluffy. Sweet. Brief. Levi and I aren’t cotton candy.”

He pauses and then makes the final, swift slice.

“Levi and I are water and air—enduring and essential.”

Rudra has the audacity to grin, amused crinkles accenting his green, gold flecked irises.

“I hear this is a theme with you—making grand, glided promises,” he says, amid chuckles. “How do you expect anyone take you seriously when you’re still halfway in the closet?”

Nico can’t stop his face from collapsing. Can’t stop himself from jerking half a step back. Rudra’s expression softens, and Nico would’ve rather taken a punch to the gut.

“Sorry…it’s just, I know what it’s like to have two lives—the one your parents planned for you before your conception and the one you actually live. It nearly killed me trying to live them both, but I was scared to death of telling my family the truth. I didn’t want to find out if my parents actually meant it when they said they’d love me no matter what, because let’s face it, everyone has a hard ‘what’ that does matter. So I’m not going to judge you for not being ready to find out. Like you said, I don’t know you or where you’re coming from.”

Briefly, Rudra purses his lips thoughtfully and then, sighing, smiles apologetically.

“I also don’t want to know. It’s not relevant, because you won’t be the one taking Levi home tonight. Or tomorrow night. Or the night after that. That future? It belongs to the ‘us’ that actually exists. The one that has a chance.”

Rudra steps around him and goes. Nico moves forward too, beating back the ache behind his eyes, determined to keep his gaze clear and focused. Rudra might walk like a man who thinks he’s already won, but Nico is the one with the momentum of someone who’s got everything to lose. And this isn’t over yet. He and Levi aren’t over.

Not even close.


	6. Let You Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Nico, it all comes down to the bones.
> 
> A songfic set to "Let You Down" by NF.

_"I wish that I could say I'm proud_

_I'm sorry that I let you down."_

_-NF_

Nico is thinking about bones—their length, their shape, their density, their strength. He is thinking about the tendons and tissues and muscles they support and about how it all comes back to the bones. Strip everything else away, the skin and the meat, and the bones will tell you everything you need to know. The start, the end, and everything in between. 

He is thinking about these things because he is due in surgery in five. So, perusing his patient’s latest labs as one final preparation, his father is not even an inkling scuttling around the back of his mind when the man suddenly appears in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” Nico demands, looking back down at the chart. The numbers and stats blur together, muddled and unreadable.

“‘Hi, Dad,’” his father says flatly. “‘Wow, what a surprise! How nice to see you!’ –That’s the normal reaction you have when your father flies in to see you.” Nico snorts and flips a page, only to see more figures that don’t add up.

“Where’s the conference?” he asks. His father, as tall as him but thinner and silver-haired, cocks an eyebrow.

“Excuse me?”

“You weren’t flying in to see me. You’re on a layover, on your way to some conference or meeting or some deal in progress. I am not the destination. I am a convenient stop.

“Now on hold—”

“And you’re not here to ‘surprise’ me,” Nico interjects smoothly. He starts to flip another page but, tired of the pretense., snaps the chart shut and drops it onto the counter of the nurse’s station behind him. “Jason Kim, natural science manager for the top ranked engineering firm in the eastern half the country, does not get on a plane for over six hours just to say ‘surprise!’. I did something—or didn’t do something—and now you’re here to fix me, preferably before your next flight in, what, an hour?”

“Nico—”

“If you had called, I could’ve saved you the cab fare. I have surgery.” His father laughs dryly and nods.

“Yes, calling would’ve been much easier. But for calling to work, the other person has to pick up the phone when you call, and for reasons that have yet to be explained to me, you aren’t answering our calls, mine or your mother’s. When, after weeks and weeks of radio silence, you finally do offer up a sign of life, it’s a four-word text message to say you’re not coming home for Easter.”

Nico shrugs.

“So?”

“ ‘So’?” his father bulks, his jaw almost—almost—dropping. “Christmas and Easter, that’s all your mother and I ask for. You home a twice a year, that’s it.” Nico feels the incredulity bubbling and boiling in his stomach, like a long-simmering poison finally ripening. 

“That’s not it,” Nico refutes. “That’s not all you ask for. That’s not all you demand. It’s Christmas and Easter and hours upon hours of listening to you two pick me apart.” He pitches his voice low to mimic his father’s drawl. “‘Only salutatorian? You would’ve made Valedictorian if you had tried harder. Cornell’s nice, but doesn’t quite have the same recognition as Harvard. Why medicine? That’s so common. Anybody can be a doctor. Orthopedic? If you’re going insist on being a surgeon, at least pick a worthwhile specialty.’”

“That’s not fair,” his father refutes. Nico hiccups a guffaw and reclaims his own voice.

“No,” he agrees. “It’s not.”

“It’s not fair that I excel at everything I do and still somehow come up short to you. I was salutatorian and class president and MVP on a national winning team. I got full rides to three Ivy League schools. I was summa cum laude undergraduate and med school. I am a fellow under one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the country, and I am fielding job offers left and right from some of the most prestigious hospitals there are. I should be standing on the top of the world, but in the span of one meal, you rip it all down. You rip me down.”

“Where is all this coming from, Nico?” his father sighs. He sounds worried, but Nico knows from the way his eyes flint around and bounce off passersby that he is not worried about his son. His father never did care for anything that looked too closely at their picture-perfect family. “Have you been working those thirty-six hours shifts again? Lack of sleep really messes with you. You should know that as a doctor.”

“I am surgeon,” Nico retorts, “and I have surgery now.” He makes it a full three feet before his father is grabbing him at the elbow.

“Answer me, son,” is the order. “What is going? Why all of sudden are you so angry?”

Nico yanks his arm free.

“Haven’t you been listening?” he hisses. “ ‘All of sudden’? It’s not ‘all of sudden’! It’s always been here! We have always been like this—always—and I can’t do it anymore. I can’t fake it through another dinner and smile while you and Mom take your sledgehammers and knock me down over and over again.”

“Just because we want to challenge you to be your best self—”

“My best? I’ve been giving you my best my entire life. It just wasn’t good enough for you.” 

“Uh, sorry to interrupt.” Rubbing his hands together nervously, Levi keeps his distance and looks everywhere but at Nico’s father. “Dr. Kim, you’re needed in OR four. Dr. Lincoln is waiting, and he’s getting grumpy.” Nico clears his throat.

“I will be right there.” Levi scurries off, hightailing it out of the line fire at top speed. Watching him walk away feels like a bone splintering every time.

This time, his father’s jaw does drops. It drops, closes, and drops again, as if he’s drowning and hoping to find some silver of air.

“Nico—”

“I’m in love with that man,” Nico repeats, “and I broke up with him because I couldn’t imagine taking him home for Christmas. I promised him I would, but I didn’t mean it, because I literally couldn’t picture him at your table sitting at the place you reserved for my future wife. I broke up with the man I love because I was afraid to take him to a house that I don’t live in anymore. A house I don’t have to go to anymore, because I’m grown. I’m a grown man, and I can make my own decisions. I don’t have to go to that house if I don’t want to. And I don’t want to.”

“Alright,” his father says unsteadily. Hesitantly, he puts his hands on Nico’s shoulders and squeezes. “Alright. If you’re…if you’re gay, then that’s fine. It’s fine. Come home. We’ll talk about it—you, me and your mother. Okay? We’ll support you, like we always have. Just come home.”

Smiling hollowly, Nico swats his father’s hands off.

“Support me? It’s that really what you think you’ve been doing all these years? Supporting me?” His father clenches his jaw, the fine wrinkles in his forehead becoming more pronounced as his brow furrows.

“Enough, Nico,” his father commands. “All your mother and I ever wanted was for you to be happy, and I am not going to let you spout off ridiculous accusations just because you’re throwing a tantrum over some simple looking boy—”

Nico hold up a pointer finger. His voice is low. Warning.

“Levi is a man, not a boy, and a brilliant, kind, compassionate surgeon. And if you really do want there to be so much as a chance of me stopping in for Easter or Christmas down the line, then you won’t insult him ever again. I might not be able to fix things with him, but if that is how things turn out, it’s not going to because I was two-faced or ambivalent or playing pretend. That’s who I love. This is who I am. I’m not going to apologize for it or feel guilty about how bad you think it makes you look. I am going to go to OR four now, though, before my attending hands me my ass. And you should go too, before you miss your fight.”

As he moves forward, Nico is not thinking about his father. He is thinking about bones. It really does all come back to the bones.


	7. Feel It Twice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi is used to mortification of varying kinds. But this? This is new.
> 
> A songfic set to "Feel It Twice" by Camila Cabello.

_"Kills me to kill you when I tell you  
That I felt it once, I can't feel it twice."_

_-Camila Cabella_

Levi is so used to the sensation of mortification that it’s practically his baseline. He’s done so many things that would’ve sent thinner-skinned persons heading for the hills to retire as recluses—serving as a human blood bag, dropping his glasses into a human cavity, misplacing a guide wire in a vein, losing a patient, getting caught post-coital by the chief of surgery—that tripping over a gurney wheel should be counted as a good day. 

Except there might have been a very distinctive _snap_ as his ankle twisted mid-fall, a rush of shriek-inducing agony instantly following. And he might have tried to play the pain off as minor and power through scut and rounds. And he might have showed up to Dr. Grey’s OR limping too severely to disguise, resulting in an immediate banishment to an exam room.

Which is how he finds himself now sprawled on an examination table helpless and immobile as Nico walks through the door. So, no, today is not a good day.

“Oh God,” he groans, falling back against the table’s padding. He looks over accusingly at Taryn, who is hovering nearby, and she throws up her hands.

“I didn’t page him!” she half-whispers. “Dr. Grey did. I mean, she paged ortho, and I wasn’t about to argue, not when your ankle is rapidly becoming the size of a grapefruit!”

“There are, like, half a dozen residents in ortho!” he mutters harshly. “And it’s just a sprain. A fellow doesn’t need to examine a sprain! Hell, neither does a resident! An intern can more than handle—argh!”

He winces as Nico, gently, lifts and supports his right ankle with one hand and simultaneously slips his sneaker then sock off with the other. Lowering Levi’s ankle back down, Nico nimbly rolls the powder blue of his scrubs up, his knuckles grazing Levi’s bare skin more than once.

“It’s not just sprained,” he says. “I’ll have to do an x-ray to confirm, but it’s probably fractured. And like hell I’m letting a resident touch you, let alone an intern.”

“I’m going to go order that x-ray,” Taryn announces. She hurries out, pointedly not seeing Levi’s desperate, wild mimes of _please, no, don’t leave me_.

The door clicks shut behind her, and silence crams into every crevice of the small room.

“How did this happen?” asks Nico. His hands are still on Levi’s ankle, his fingers tracing its swollen tissue. Levi stares up at the tile ceiling and does his best to ignore the tender handling.

“How do you think?” he sighs, his tone slurring toward sarcasm. “I was my usual graceful self.” Nico chuckles softly.

“Sounds about right.”

“Really, Nico,” Levi tries to assure suddenly. “I’m fine, and I’m sure you have patients with actual broken bones—actual, badly broken bones that need an ‘ortho-god’s’ attention. Taryn can help me ice and wrap my ankle when she gets back.”

“I told you, it’s fractured, not sprained,” Nico corrects. He starts to unroll Levi’s pant leg. “You’ll need to wear a boot for a couple weeks. Crutches wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”

Levi scrambles to sit up.

“Crutches?” he cries. “No, no, no! I can’t do crutches. I’m meeting Rudra’s parents this weekend, and I can’t show up on crutches! I was counting on having six, seven minutes to make a good impression before I inevitably do something uncoordinated. If I show up hobbling like Tiny Tim, I’ll never be able to convince them that I am not a complete moron!”

Nico’s fingers still on his skin, and Levi promptly falls back down. His eyes glue themselves to the ceiling tile directly above him and stay there.

"I’m sure they’ll love you,” Nico murmurs. “How could they not?”

“Rudra says the same thing,” Levi replies as he crosses his arms over his chest. “But he hasn’t seen me in action yet. I’m used to embarrassing myself, but I don’t want to embarrass him. …I want his family to like me. I really want them to like me _with_ him.”

Slowly, Nico’s fingers withdraw, and Levi’s skin immediately aches for the warmth that they take with them. _  
_

“Like I said,” Nico exhales, “how could they not? You go good with everything.” Staring up, Levi just breathes. In. Out. In. Out—

“Nico, I—"

“Okay, we’re all set!” Taryn greets over-cheerily as she pushes the door open with her back. In front of her she pulls along a wheelchair, which she situates beside the examination table. “Let’s get you down to x-ray, Schmitt.” She moves to help Levi, but Nico beats her to it and, maneuvering an arm beneath Levi’s armpit, eases him off the table and into the chair.

“Bring me the scans as soon as they’re ready, Helm,” Nico tells Taryn. Nodding sharply, she pushes Levi out into the hallway.

“Now, before you tell me how bad of a friend I am,” she says sheepishly into his ear, “know that I left to hurry the x-ray along so _that_ back there could end as quickly as possible. That was a football field of awkward in a ten-by-ten, and I am pretty sure prolonged exposure to those conditions will make you go certifiably insane.”

Her words pass by Levi like a mild breeze, shooing away the ghost of Nico’s caress on his ankle.

“I have to wear a boot to meet Rudra’s parents,” he bemoans. “A boot and crutches. I’m going to look like an idiot before I even open my mouth.” Taryn pats him affectionately on the shoulder.

“Oh please, they’re going to love you. How could they not?”


	8. More Hearts Than Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rudra takes Levi home to mama.
> 
> Songfic set to "More Hearts Than Mine" by Ingrid Andress

  
_"Oh, if we break up, I'll be fine  
But you'll be breaking more hearts than mine."_

_-Ingrid Andress_

Rudra’s hometown is about fifty minutes outside of Seattle, a sleepy little harbor hamlet with little claim to fame, but it’s got that historic charm that convinces passers-through to slow down and stop in a while. There’s an actual Maine Street, where a farmers’ market is held every Sunday, weather permitting, after all the churches let out, and the local high school sits at its end right before it splits out into residential lanes. 

Growing up, Rudra had spent many a Friday night there trying not to freeze on the bleachers, not because he was a huge football fan, but because that’s what you did. Yeah, it’s that kind of town, the small, quaint place idolized in country songs. It isn’t perfect—Rudra, brown and Hindu-raised and gay, could attest to that better than anybody—and most kids here spend their formative years longing for the great escape to anywhere else. Yet, since leaving, he misses it more than often not, and Levi’s wonder-sheened face has him seeing it through new eyes.

“Wait, is that the tree?” Levi asks excitedly. He points a finger at the windshield, directing Rudra’s attention to a hemlock towering over an old Victorian at the upcoming corner.

“Yep, that’s it,” Rudra confirms as he pulls the car over and puts it in park. “Ten feet up that tree is the best place to read a book on the whole West Coast. Until you fall out and have to go to your junior high prom in a full leg cast.” Snorting, Levi gestures at the boot encasing his right foot.

“At least that’s a better story than ‘Oh, this? I tripped. Oh, where? Where I work, which is a hospital, where I’m supposedly a doctor.’’” Rudra lightly squeezes Levi’s knee.

“Yeah, look at me,” he says, and reluctantly, Levi does. “You’ll be great, okay? I’m the one who should be worried. It’s my crazy family that’s about to be put on display in all its glory.”

“They can’t be any crazier than my mom,” Levi dismisses. “If you look ‘neurotic’ up in the dictionary, there is no definition, just her picture.”

“Wanna bet?” Rudra replies, eyeing his childhood home through the passenger window. His mother’s tulips are in full bloom and line the walk-up in a meticulously arranged altering red-pink pattern. “When I brought my high school boyfriend home, the first thing my mother did was ask him what condom size he wore. She wanted to buy some for us to make sure I was practicing safe sex.” Levi blanches an icy white.

“W-what?” he croaks.

“That was my exact sentiments,” Rudra empathizes, “which is why I haven’t brought home a guy since.” Levi blinks.

“ _What?_ ” But Rudra, Levi’s crutches in hand, is already opening the driver’s side door and sliding out of the car.

He’s not surprised in the slightest to find his mother waiting at the end of the walk away by the time he rounds the trunk.

“Hi Mom,” Rudra greets. He starts to head toward her, arms offering up a hug, but she waves him impatiently.

“Are you going to help him out or not?” she demands. “You dragged him all the way here despite his condition. The least you could do is open the car door for him like the gentleman I raised you to be.” Rudra laughs inwardly. Yes, he supposes there is no point in delaying the inevitable. He did come all this way. But all this rationality does not slow his heartbeat as he opens Levi’s door. Levi’s eyes are still wide and panicky.

“Are you telling me that I’m the first since—”

“You must be Levi!” Rudra’s mother should have been an NFL right tackle given the way she pushes Rudra out of the way.

“Yeah, uh, hi!” Levi greets. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Anand.”

“Oh, no, none that,” his mother admonishes. “You call me Nira. Rudra, what are you doing? Help him out of the car!”

Thankfully, Rudra’s father waits until they get inside. Rudra is not sure if that’s because he wants to give them space or because he wants to sneak a bit of his mother’s famous kheer pudding. If it’s the latter, he’s not fast enough, and his mother catches him spoon-in-mouth.

“Manvik! Put that down!” she orders, slapping his hand away. “Raccoons have better manners than you!”

“Hello son!” his father bellows as he flees the scene of the crime. He wraps Rudra up in a quick, strong bear hug before turning his attention to Levi. 

“So you’re Levi,” he says, his tone far cooler. Levi adjusts his grip so he can shift his weight to one arm and offer the opposing hand.

“Nice to meet you, sir.” Pausing just long enough to cast an aura of intimidation, his father takes Levi’s hand and gives it a firm shake.

“Are there no gentlemen in this house?” his mother, checking on something in the oven, snaps. “Someone get that poor boy a chair now!”

“Let’s get you settled in the living room, son,” his father, amused, sighs. It takes a moment for Rudra too realize that his father is not addressing him. He is not opposed to the ping of warmth this realization incites.

Just his father leads Levi into the living room, a whoosh of air refreshes the kitchen as the patio door slides open and Rudra’s sister speeds in. Her caramel brown eyes are alight with mischief.

“Where is he?” she inquires eagerly.

“Keya?” he squawks. “Aren’t you supposed in Florida?” She flashes him a pixie grin.

“I rescheduled my flight for tomorrow. There is no way I was going to miss _this_.”

“Neither was I.”

Rudra’s oldest friend steps through the patio door, and he must bite his tongue to keep from cursing in his mother’s presence, which, if memory serves, never ends well for his backside.

“Devon? What are you doing here?”

“Your mom told me that you were going to be in town and said I should pop in,” Devon explains as he crosses the room to embrace Rudra. Mid-hug, he lowers his volume. “Oh, remember when I brought home my future wife for the first time and you spent hours regaling my punk rock phase?”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Rudra hisses back.

“I know they say payback’s a bitch, but turns out payback is also a fine black man who witnessed both your fourth grade pageant and your first counter with alcohol.”

“I’m going to kill you.” Pulling away, Devon claps him on the back.

“Not in front your mama you’re not.”

“Keya, go ask Levi if he wants anything to drink,” Rudra’s mother instructs. Keya practically bounces off the wall.

“Gladly!”

“I’ll help!” Devon adds as he follows her, a skip in his step. 

“Mom!” Rudra cries once they’re gone. “Devon? Really? And I know Keya was planning to leave for Panama City for yesterday—” Which may or may not have played a part in Rudra’s selection of this particular weekend for the visit— “Who else did you invite? Please don’t tell me half the town is going to ‘pop-in.’ I don’t want Levi to feel ambushed.”

“What?” his mother sniffs indignantly. “This isn’t an ambush. What is wrong with your sister and your best friend meeting your boyfriend?”

“Nothing! Of course I want Keya and Devon to meet Levi, I just…wanted to ease him into it. He was already nervous enough about meeting you and Dad. Nobody should be subjected to Keya’s level of energy without fair warning, and Devon… Devon is like wasabi—best in small doses.”

Laughter drifts in from the living room, and Rudra shoots an aghast look over his shoulder. If Devon does recount their fourth-grade pageant, Rudra really is going to kill him.

“It’s been going on ten minutes, and your father hasn’t come up with some excuse to hide in the garage,” his mother observes aloud. “Keya’s last boyfriend didn’t make it past three.”

As if on cue, his sister comes hopping back in the room.

“Levi says ‘no but thank you’ on a drink, Mom,” she says. Their mother shakes her head and points to a glass pitcher.

“Nonsense, take him some ice water.” Complying, his sisters grabs a glass from the cabinet and stares at Rudra suspiciously.

“How did you do it?” she asks.

“Do what?” Rudra answers. 

“Bag someone as adorable and awesome as him?” She taps her t-shirt, which sports what Rudra can only assume are characters from one of the many anime shows she adores. “Anyone who knows what _Yu Yu Haksuho_ is too cool for you. Plus, when he says he wants to see what I am working for my animation class, I can tell he means it, which is very weird, because you definitely don’t when you say it. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

She keeps her narrowed eyes on him as she leaves again, water glass in hand.

“See?” his mother says. “What are you so afraid, hmm?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just can’t help but remember that the last guy I brought home went running for the hills after stepping foot in this house.”

“The last boy you brought home had a green Mohawk and didn’t know how to chew with his mouth shut,” she counters. “He also talked down to you like you were stupid, which was ridiculous, because you were far more intelligent than him, not that was difficult to accomplish. I don’t care who you bring home, Rudra, as long as they treat you right.” She bows her head toward the living room.

“And that one?” she goes on, gifting him with a smile. “That one cares enough to be nervous about meeting your family. And he’s polite and has a sensible hairstyle. So, as long as you want him here, I’m not going to chase him off. None of us are. We love you too much for that.”

More laughter erupts before Rudra can respond, and his mother’s knowing smile grows wider as she lifts a lid off a pot to check the simmering stew inside.

“I can’t promise, though, that Devon won’t tell Levi about your 10th grade talent show. He mentioned it while we were waiting for you.”

Paling, Rudra power-walks to the living room only to stop stunned in his tracks. His father, relaxing in an armchair, is chuckling over a glass of scotch, while Devon and Keya, sitting on either end of the couch, are both howling out belly laughs. In the middle, Levi is laughing too, his face open and free.

It scares Rudra a little, how beautiful it is. How easily he could get used to a scene like this.

Thank you to all of you who left such wonderful comments! Please know there will not be an update tomorrow, as I work on my other story on Sunday’s, but I do plan to continue this for at least two or three more chapters. So please stay tuned!


	9. Feel Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Link wants Nico to face facts. Nico would rather not.
> 
> A Songfic set to "Feel Better" by Alana Springsteen

_"Don’t wanna feel better_

_Cuz that means we’re over."_

_-Alana Springsteen_

“What the hell happened to the board?” Link snaps. He waves a hand wildly at blank spaces in the schedule. “Who erased my surgeries?” Behind him, Nico watches with weak interest. He should be more concern about disappearing surgeries, surgeries he is supposed to take the lead on, but he’s a little busy trying not to remember Levi’s face from this morning. He was glowing, practically vibrating as he showed Taryn pictures of his weekend getaway. When he saw Nico coming, he had shoved his phone in his pocket as if he were disposing of a murder weapon. But it had been too late to shield Nico.

It’s been too late for a while.

“Seriously?” Link, flustered, continues to squawk. “Who did this?”

“I did,” Koracick admits easily as he saunters toward them. Link goes as red as a lit cherry bomb.

“Why? Why would you cancel my very rare and very cool and very necessary surgeries?”

“Uh, two reasons,” Koracick muses. “One, a film crew is upcoming tomorrow to get some footage for some much needed publicity, and your pretty, smiling face saving an adorable child is just the kind of goodwill fodder we need. Which brings us to reason number two—”

Koracick wags a finger at Nico.

“You need to fix _that_.” Link glances questioningly first at Nico and then at Koracick.

“Fix what? The man has the cheekbones of Michelangelo’s David.”

“His cheekbones and the rest of his face are a sack of sad,” argues Koracick nonchalantly. “If Michelangelo had sculpted a sack of sad, he’s what it would look like. I don’t want a sack of sad, however chiseled, to be the face of this hospital. So fix it.”

“How?” Link cries. “And why me?”

“Your fellow, your problem to fix,” Koracick reasons. “Get him drunk. Get him laid. I don’t care how, just bring him back tomorrow bright-eyed and bushy tailed and without the Charlie Brown raincloud over his head.”

“I’m right here,” Nico cuts in. 

“And that’s the problem,” Koracick replies. He shifts his attention to his phone, his thumbs tap-dancing across its keyboard. “Go, get happy somewhere so you can come in tomorrow looking good and, more importantly, make me look good.”

“Okay, he’s gone too far this time!” Link growls, tearing off his scrub cap. “This is clearly an abuse of power! Hang tight, Nico, I am going to find Bailey and—” Link looks to Nico, but he misses it. On the other side of the nurse’s station, Levi and Taryn are passing by, Levi’s gait a little uneven because of the walking boot. They are leaning in close to one another, their focus on something Levi is holding.

Sighing, Link drags a hand down his face.

“Go change,” he says. The order yanks Nico out of his reverie.

“What?”

“Go change, and meet me at the main doors in ten.”

“You can’t be serious.” Link fires a pointer finger at the board.

“My surgeries have been _erased_. So, yeah, I’m dead serious.”

So, twenty minutes later, Nico is stuck in the most uncomfortable car ride of his adult life. Beside him, Link is gripping the steering wheel as if it were a life raft.

“You don’t have to do this, Link,” he mutters in an effort to refresh the stale air.

“No, I don’t,” Link agrees, “but, as much as I hate to say it, Koracick has a point. Eeyore displays more joy in his sad, purple donkey face than you’ve had in months, and, honestly, it’s a drag to work with. You and your Charlie Brown cloud are a drag to work with. We used to play tunes when we operated. You used to jump at the chance to do anything and everything I put in front of you. You looked forward to any kind of experience you could get. But lately? Nothing. I was going to let you lead on two one-in-million surgeries today, and nothing.” Nico shifts in his seat and adjusts his seatbelt.

“If I come across as ungrateful, I am sorry—”

“You come across as heartbroken,” Link swiftly amends. “And I get it. I do. But there comes a point at which you got to let it go. You got to let it go, man.”

“So what?” Nico poses. “Are you going to take to the local gay bar so I can ‘get over’ it?”

“ _No_ , because that would be inappropriate.”

“We are well into inappropriate. We crossed that county line the minute we got into the car.”

“You think I want to do this right now? I had a plan for today—it involved a very expensive, very awesome drill—but it literally got erased because of your sad eyes. So we’re going to drive until you come with some way to get past this.”

“…You think I haven’t tried?” Nico snips. 

“No,” Link refutes. “I don’t.” 

“I think,” he goes on as Nico stares petulantly out the window, “that you’re waiting. You’re waiting for Schmitt to change his mind. Or you’re waiting for the other guy to mess up. You’re waiting on an opening. But what if an opening isn’t coming, Nico?”

Nico doesn’t answer, because that is not a possibility he wants to ponder. …But, late at night, when darkness cannot hide the fact that the other side of the bed is empty, the worse case scenario does come creeping, a nightmare that doesn’t need the key of sleep to break in.

Rubbing the back of his perfectly coiffed hair, Link revises his approach.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he says. “I liked you and Schmitt together. You helped him become more confident in himself, and he made you less Tin Man, more human.”

Nico hits him with disgruntled side eye, but Link shrugs apologetically.

“You were a Tin Man before Schmitt. A very shiny, brilliant Tin Man but a Tin Man. The point is you made each other better. But maybe you’ve learned all that you’re meant to learn from one another. Maybe your relationship was like a prosthetic limb on a kid—something needed to improve the quality of life but something you ultimately outgrow.”

“Levi is not a prosthetic limb,” Nico dismisses.

“Okay, not the best analogy—”

“Levi is _not_ a prosthetic limb. He’s not someone I’m going to outgrow or replace.”

“Fine,” Link yields, “but is that true in the reverse?”

“I’m not the second lead!” Nico snaps impatiently. Link raises an eyebrow, and Nico propels air out through gritted teeth. “You’ve ever seen a Korean drama? In the almost every one, the main character has two love interests, the first lead and the second lead, and the second lead never wins. Never. I’m not the second lead.”

“No one’s the second lead in their own story,” Link replies gently. “But what if your story isn’t Schmitt’s story?”

“Isn’t the whole point of this to make me ‘happy’ so I’ll be photogenic tomorrow?” Nico deflects.

“That’s Koracick’s point,” Link clarifies. “Mine is to help you. And I don’t see how lying to you helps you. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Schmitt is going to come back, because I’ve seen Schmitt, and Schmitt looks happy right where he is.”

“I’m not blind!” Nico barks. He rotates in his seat so he can face Link head on. “I’m not blind, and I’m not delusional! I can see perfectly well that Levi is just doing fine without me—better without me. I can see what’s happening. But I can’t do anything about it, because what’s happening? It’s my fault. I did this to myself. I told Levi to go find someone who could give him what he wanted, and by the time I realized that I wanted to be that someone, he had found someone else. And I can’t even hate the other guy, because how do I hate someone who makes the person I love so happy?”

Wetness stings his eyes, and, turning back to window, he squeezes them shut, trying to stave off tears that won’t be denied.

“I can see what’s happening,” he repeats. Hot and searing, a tear plummets down his skin. “I also see the guy to blame every time I look in the mirror. Tell me how to get over _that_.”

Quiet, the third passenger in the car, makes itself known and does all the talking for the next few minutes. It only stops when Link’s phone rings.

“Hello?” Link sighs into the receiver. His nose immediately scrunches in annoyance. “Koracick erased my surgeries, so we’re—” His voice halted. His face falls and turns to stone. 

“We are the way,” he finally says. Tossing his phone into the cup holder, he turns the wheel sharply, sending the car flying into a rough U-turn.

Nico snatches at the grab handle above him to keep from crashing into the dashboard.

“What is going on?” he demands. “Is it a patient?”

“That was Bailey,” Link explains, his words chary and measured. “We need to go back to the hospital. Now.”

“Why?” Nico asks again. His heartbeat starts to hasten as Link lays into the accelerator.

“Apparently,” Link hedges, “there’s been a fight in the pit. People…our people got hurt.” 

“What does mean?” Nico questions, despising the burgeoning desperateness coatings his voice. “Who got hurt?”

Link doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t need to. Nico isn’t blind. He can see the unwanted answer in the way Link’s blue eyes glance at him pityingly.


	10. Bring You Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rudra waits. Nico prays.
> 
> A songfic set to "Bring You Back" by Gold Brother and Liiv.  
> Please be advised of some mild references to violence in this chapter.

_"Don't fade into black."_

_-Gold Brother and Liiv_

Flashing red and blue outside a hospital is commonplace. But it’s the sheer amount outside of Grey Sloan Memorial—a veritable lightening storm—that has Rudra’s run faltering. People and police are everywhere, and he is dodging bodies as he weaves through the crowd to make it inside. Inside, though, is hardly better than organized chaos, doctors and nurses marshalling like army soldiers, shouting out commands and marching orders. Rudra feels like he’s been dropped into a war zone without the proper protective gear. He is fully exposed. 

But, still, he barrels in.

“Taryn, Taryn!” he gasps, grabbing at Taryn’s elbow. “What’s going on? And where’s Levi? Is he okay?” It takes a moment for her to register who it is standing before her. She frowns tightly as her gaze flutters about the mess swirling around them.

“Taryn!” he cries again, shaking her a little.

“There-there was a protest, if-if you can call it that,” she manages with between labored breaths. “Neo-nazi, incel types. So, of course, there were counter-protestors, and it got ugly—really ugly. We were the nearest trauma-center, so they had to bring everyone here, protestors _and_ counter-protestors. And then it got uglier.”

“Where’s. Levi.” Peering up at him, Taryn swallows.

“He tried to break it up,” she says. “But fists were flying, and Levi’s balance…with the boot…” Trembling, she holds her hands in front of her as if trying to shape her next words into existence using the air between them. 

It’s then that Rudra notices that her palms, from heel to fingertip, are painted red.

“And some-somewhere in al-l that,” she stutters, “there was a machete. One of the skinheads had a _goddamn_ machete. And Levi… he got punched, hard, and when he fell…” She takes rapidly successive, acute inhales but gets little for her efforts.

“No,” Rudra murmurs, letting go of Taryn. “No, no, he can’t be— He can’t be— I was going to buy a—I was going tomorrow. I was going to— He can’t be… Levi can’t be—"

“He’s not.” A petite black woman inserts herself between Taryn and Rudra. On her white coat, in neat cursive script and beneath the name of “Dr. Miranda Bailey,” is the embroidered title “Chief of Surgery.”

“Helm, go wash your hands and your face,” she orders bluntly. “Then go find Dr. Hunt and make yourself useful. It’s all hands on deck, so be a person later. Right now, I need surgeons.” When Taryn hesitates, Bailey snaps her fingers commandingly. “ _Go_.”

As Taryn hustles off, Bailey redirects to Rudra, and her face relaxes slightly—only slightly. 

“You must be Dr. Rudra Anand,” she greets. “I’ve heard good things about you.” She folds her hands in front of her, and Rudra recognizes the posture—the posture all doctors assume when they’re about to deliver less-than-fantastic news.

“Ma’am,” he says thickly, “I know you can’t tell me specifics, but please…Levi… I need to know…”

“Levi is in surgery,” Bailey tells him mercifully. “The very best doctors we have are doing everything they can to save him. Please, come with me. I’ll show where you can wait.”

“Dr. Lincoln,” Dr. Grey is saying, meanwhile, “why is Dr. Kim in my OR?” Her blue eyes are nearly white underneath the stark overhead lights.

“Because I need four hands to save Schmitt’s foot,” Link answers brusquely, “and God thought it obscene to give me more than two. I also don’t have time to teach this _very_ delicate procedure to somebody else. And neither does Schmitt. ”

“Fine,” Dr. Grey acquiesces. “But the minute he starts to lose it, he’s out. Understand?” 

Looking up from visible tendons and muscles, Nico nods minutely.

“Yes ma’am.” He does his best to keep his eyes on her examining, blue-white glare as oppose to the vertical sheet that hides the face of their patient.

Electronic notes play the melody of Levi’s heart and lungs, and that is what Nico focuses is on. The steady, rhythmic beeps that signal Levi is still here. 

“Listen up, Schmitt,” Dr. Grey mutters, her scalpel halfway through an elegant slice. “I didn’t spend the better part of a year suffering through you redefining ‘bumbling’ just to watch you _almost_ become a decent surgeon. You are going to live, you hear me? You are going to live because we have put too much time and too much effort in you to lose you now. You stuck with it this long. Don’t give up now. Don’t you dare give up now.”

The electric melody goes staccato and off key. 

“BP’s dropping!” a masked face shouts.

“Shit!” Dr. Grey hisses. “Don’t do this Schmitt!”

One note. The melody of Levi’s heart goes flat and one note.

No, Nico thinks. 

No.

_No._

His scalpel drops from his hand.

His hands fold over Levi’s chest in a prayer and begin to pump.

He braves a look over the divider. Eyes closed, a breathing tube branching out of his mouth, Levi has no red or life in his skin.

“Come back,” Nico pleads, hands pumping, praying. “Come back. I want you to come back. Even though I know you’re choosing him. Even though I know lost you. Come back. I need you to come back, Levi. Come back!”

Somewhere beyond him, Dr. Grey and Link are yelling, and machines are wailing. Nico keeps his eyes on Levi.

“Come back. Please. _Come back_.”

Someone grabs him by the back of his scrubs and pulls him away.

The electronic melody starts up again, a high, mourning note. 

Nico’s every bone starts to break. His center of gravity begins to evaporate, and he can feel himself both floating and falling.

But then—a new note. 

And then—a new rhythm. Steady. Strong. Someone, maybe Dr. Grey, issues an urgent proclamation.

“We got a heartbeat!”


	11. How Long Will I Love You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico lets go, and so does Levi.
> 
> A songfic set to "How Long Will I Love You" by Ellie Goulding

_How long will I love you?  
As long as stars are above you_

_-Elle Goulding_

When Levi awakes, Nico, reading over a chart, is at the foot of his bed. Bangs hanging limply against his forehead, skin at the meeting of his neck and jawline damp with sweat, he looks as if he is taking a long break from sleep, and it has started to erode his usual polish. Still, when he glances up and sees Levi gazing back, Nico’s tender smile is so very lovely.

“Hey,” he says softly. Levi’s lips do their best to offer something in return.

“Hi.”

“How do you feel?” asks Nico. He sets down the chart and moves up the bed until his hand could reach out for Levi’s but doesn’t.

“Like I pirouetted into a machete,” Levi attempts to joke, chuckling through a wince. “It is sounds bad ass, but I wouldn’t recommend it.” Nico smirks

“Noted.” Nico’s wearied brown eyes sweep over Levi’s body and linger on his bound foot. “You’re going to need some follow-ups and few a months of PT, but you’re going to be okay.”

“Thank you,” Levi replies, but Nico shakes his head humbly.

“Thank Link and Dr. Grey. They did most of the work.”

Levi’s gaze drifts. He doesn’t mean to make it so obvious, but he is exhausted and has little energy to spend on subtlety. Nico follows his search.

“Rudra went to get something to eat,” he explains kindly. “And he only went because your mom practically dragged him by the ear. I’m sure they’ll be back any minute.” The room spins a little.

“My mom?” he rasps. “My mom is here?”

“Don’t worry,” Nico soothes, placing a warm palm a top of Levi’s matted curls. “She’s trying. She told me that she doesn’t ever want you to…to go doubting that you are the most important thing in her life. Plus, she likes Rudra. More than she ever liked me, I think.”

Levi’s heart takes a long, thundering beat.

“Nico—”

“I’m sorry, Levi,” Nico interjects quietly. His chest rises and falls in a slow breath. “I realized I never actually said it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was hypocrite. I’m sorry I blamed you for wanting something real. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry.” He pauses for another breath.

“You said once that you knew you weren’t my first love,” he exhales. “You were right. You aren’t. But you are the love who means the most to me. You’re the one who got away. The one I let go of and will always wish I hadn’t. And a part of me is always going to hope that I win you back some day. But the rest of me…the rest of me will do its best just to be happy that you’re happy.”

“Levi?” Rudra’s voice is rough and tear-hemmed.

Nico steps back, allowing Rudra to fill the space he vacates.

Rudra cups Levi’s cheeks and presses his lips together in a tight, wavering line. Levi finds the strength to lift a hand and lay it over one of Rudra’s. 

“You can’t run into machetes,” Rudra rasps. “You can’t play the hero and run into machetes. Your best friend can’t call me and tell me to hurry if I want to say goodbye—to see you one last time. Because I’m never saying goodbye to you, you understand? There is no last time.”

He leans down to press his forehead against Levi’s.

“I refuse to wait for you in another hospital lounge,” he whimpers. “If I’m waiting on you, it’s going to be at the end of an aisle.”

“This isn’t me asking you yet,” Rudra clarifies, sniffing, “because when I ask you, it is going to be insanely romantic and involve a crap ton of roses. But, once I do ask you, you are going to need to be in tip-top shape so you can help me stop by our mothers from killing each other. I can already tell there is going to a battle royal over the seating chart.”

Levi laughs, the pain in his abdomen fleetingly and well worth it.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “No more machetes.”

Tears bud in the corners of Rudra’s eyes and bloom, turning his gold-green irises into two glittering pieces of topaz before his eyelids flutter shut as his lips descend. 

Levi raises his head just enough to meet them with his own.

Distantly, he hears Nico’s footsteps echo against the linoleum tiles, but the kiss deepens, and Levi knows he is not about give it up. He is going to savor it as long as he can.

Nico leaves, and Levi lets him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so very much for reading this story. I am amazed by how many of you enjoyed it, and I thank you for encouraging me to make it into a longer story. I do like the couple of Levi and Nico, and I will very likely explore them together in a different story. But as it stands in both this particular story and the actual series, I believe that Nico needs to go through serious growth before he and Levi could make it long term as a couple. Also, I am a bit of a sucker for bittersweet endings.
> 
> Thank you again!


End file.
